Utrom Shredder
The Utrom Shredder, actually an evil alien named Ch'rell, is the main antagonist of the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series. He is a version of the Shredder, who serves as the main antagonist of the first three seasons of the series and the film finale, Turtles Forever. He is the archenemy of the Turtles and their master Splinter. He also made some appearances in the comics like in the Mirage comics version as a cameo and later a major villain in the IDW version. He was voiced by Scottie Ray, who voiced both the Tengu Shredder and the Cyber Shredder in the series as well. Personality Ch'rell is an embodiment of the extreme megalomaniac: overconfident, ruthless, relentless and sadistic. He feels absolutely no remorse for his actions and is extremely proud of them. All that he wants is creating chaos and destruction. He hates anything and anyone who challenges, impedes, or otherwise wrongs him, holding strong grudges very long after the fact - in some cases, this can even become a pathological hatred against them. After Ch'rell had assumed the identity of the Shredder, his megalomania became even much stronger, to the point of calling himself the "one true Shredder". In the Ninja Tribunal storyline, it is revealed that anyone who claims the identity of the Shredder for themselves develops an unconscious mystical connection with the original Shredder. This connection made Ch'rell even more evil and dangerous than he already was. Consequently, Ch'rell's growing madness and hunger for power may be attributed at least in part to the influence of the Tengu Shredder; a theory given more weight by the fact that his human disguise was identical to the Tengu Shredder's human appearance. The same influence may be one of reasons why his 1987 counterpart found him instead of either Karai or Tengu Shredder. Despite being evil to the core, Shredder did show some affection towards Karai, even taking her in and training her. However, as her loyalty declines, he ended up disregarding his love for her; outright assaulting and even trying to kill her once she finally turned against him. Even Hun, his most loyal henchmen, proved nothing more than disposable as he threatened to kill him several times. In his final appearance, Shredder became even more depraved than before. Not only did he stop caring about Karai as mentioned above, but he was so fed-up with the turtles that he tried to destroy the entire universe. Overall, this Shredder is the most vile to date. He disregarded his few redeeming traits all for the sake of his revenge, and is the only version who tried to wipe out an entire universe to achieve it. Biography Past Ch'rell was a malevolent member of peaceful alien race named the Utrom and went from planet to planet, unleashing wars, creating chaos and causing destruction. He was eventually captured by the other Utroms, but some time after being taken into custody, he somehow managed to free himself and caused the transport ship to crash on Earth in 11th century Japan. Ch'rell survived the crash and went into hiding. After the Utroms managed to create exo-suits to adapt with humanity, Ch'rell stole one. Later, he became an incarnation of the Shredder, inspired by the legends he heard about the Tengu Shredder. Ch'rell also proceeded to form the Foot Clan to aid his plans and also created the Sword of Tengu, but he lost it at some time in the past. At some point in modern times, Ch'rell, as Shredder, adopted and trained an orphan named Karai, to whom he left the duty of watching over the Foot Clan's Japanese branch. He went to New York, where Shredder established himself as Oroku Saki, a billionaire businessman and took over the criminal underworld. One of very few people who could oppose Shredder was Hamato Yoshi, who protected the Utroms but refused to give up their location, and was killed. First Battle with the Turtles Years later, Shredder continued to rule New York's underworld until the Ninja Turtles stopped a group of Purple Dragons who tried to steal an armored car full of money. Next they stopped Baxter Stockman's Mousers from robbing banks in New York. Finally, Shredder managed to retrieve the Sword of Tengu, along with one of the Utrom's exo-suits, so he knew that they were still around. But then the Turtles got their hands on it and Shredder decided to get rid of them, assigning Hun and Stockman to find some way to deal with them. Hun managed to capture Raphael, then let him go so Stockman's Foot Tech Ninjas could follow him. The plan failed, but from what Hun found out from Raphael, Shredder learned that the Turtles are unaware about the Utrom, so they could be useful to him. He invited Leonardo to his home as Oroku Saki, telling him that there was a great evil that his Foot Clan fought and that they should join forces to stop it. However, Splinter revealed to Leonardo and the other Turtles that Shredder is an old enemy who killed his master, Hamato Yoshi. As the ninja turtles confronted the Foot Clan on the rooftops to deliver the news that they refused to join the Shredder, a fight started and though the turtles managed to fight off his Foot Ninjas and Hun, Shredder was able to send them running. Splinter managed to help them regroup and they faced the Foot Clan again, but Shredder defeated them one by one. However, Splinter tricked him into cutting the support for a water tower, which was then knocked onto him. The water swept Shredder off the building, before the water tower itself fell on top of him. Believing that they heard the last of him, the Ninja Turtles left with Splinter, but Shredder was very far from done. However immediately afterwards, Leonardo, who'd accidentally ended up in the past, came across Shredder, but beat him. Shredder and the Foot Clan followed Leonardo through time portals, ending up on Sh'Okanabo's space ship. They tried to take the technology, but with Sh'Okanabo and the Turtles to deal with, Shredder and his Foot Clan were defeated, ending up in their normal time. Second Round Months later, Leonardo was attacked and almost beaten to death by the Foot Elite, along with Shredder who snapped his swords in half. After tossing Leonardo through the window of April's Second Time Around shop, Shredder led the Foot Clan to attack it. Eventually, the Turtles, along with Casey and April were forced into a walk-in freezer (since the store used to be a supermarket). As the police showed up, Shredder barred the door, cut a gas pipe, and dropped a fire bomb, which caused a explosion. However, the Turtles, Splinter, Casey, and April escaped the explosion and retreated to a farmhouse in North Hampton that belonged to Casey's grandmother. They returned to New York, before storming the Foot Clan's headquarters and fought their way through the Foot Ninjas, Hun, mutated Shredder clones, and the Foot Mystics. The Turtles finally reached Shredder's location, where they faced the Foot Elite and Hun again, before Stockman appeared, now in cyborg armor that he reverse engineered from the Utrom exo-suit Shredder left him to study. Shredder and the Turtles were forced to team up to fight him and after he was defeated, they took the fight out to the balcony of the building. However, the Guardians showed up to help the Turtles and though the Shredder managed to reclaim the Sword of Tengu, Leonardo took it from him. With the Sword of Tengu, Leo faced off against Shredder, who was using the Turtle's katanas, in one final clash. It ended with Shredder being beheaded, but after the Ninja Turtles left, he picked up his head and walked away. After the battle, Splinter went missing and the Turtles found him at the T.C.R.I. building, with Shredder following them. He sent Stockman into the building to tamper with the VR technology that the Utroms used to show the Turtles a flashback of their history. This forced them to fight a feudal version of Shredder and the Foot Clan, but they managed to get back to reality. Shredder faced the Turtles and Splinter again, but Stockman turned on him, though Shredder set a timebomb to blow up the T.C.R.I. building. However, his exo-suit became so damaged that Shredder was forced to reveal himself as Ch'rell by abandoning his suit. Though the Turtles and Utrom escaped the bomb, the explosion went off before Ch'rell could get to the Transmat to escape. Return and Future Battles With his supposed demise, the mob, the Purple Dragon, and the Foot, under the leadership of the Foot Elite, began a power struggle. Karai and the Foot, with help from the Turtles in exchange for a truce, managed to get back control of the city. However, it turned out that Ch'rell had survived and was placed in a capsule to heal him while Karai watched over him. After being fully healed, Shredder's first order of business was to have revenge on the Turtles. He found out that Hun had reduced Stockman to nothing more than a brain and recruited them again. At that point, Stockman had created the Foot Mechs, mainly in the form of armored ninja robots, along with versions of the U.S. President, English Prime Minister, and Splinter. However, Shredder lost again to the Turtles with help from the Triceraton, Zog, as well as the fact that Karai was questioning her loyalty. Shredder was defeated after Zog gave his life to keep him on his freighter when it exploded, but Karai rescued him on a helicopter. Soon afterwards, the Triceratons launched an invasion of Earth and Shredder used it to gain favor in the city. He did so through his Oroku Saki persona by paying to restore the city. Shredder would also make changes to the Foot Clan, such as Karai being his new second in command, above Hun, and Dr. Chaplin being hired as a replacement for Stockman. However, while Shredder was involved in the city's politics, at the same time he worked on a spaceship in the hopes that he could destroy the Utroms, as well as other planets. With his ship finished, Shredder left Karai in control of the Foot Clan, but Splinter, the Ninja Turtles, Leatherhead, and Agent Bishop interfered. During that battle, Hun discovered that Shredder was really an Utrom after his exo-suit was damaged again. Despite numerous complications, including Baxter sabotaging his ship and attack by Agent Bishop and his men, Ch'rell managed to get onboard the ship with Karai and Chaplin. As he entered a final battle with the Turtles, he used his more powerful exo-suit, easily defeating both them and Splinter. However, Shredder was forced to fall back after Bishop fired on his ship and the Turtles decided to use their last resort; they used the Fugitoid Program to overload the ship's core, which would destroy everything including themselves, so as to stop Shredder. However, the Utroms stopped the explosion using time stasis and put Ch'rell on trial for his actions. As punishment for all the chaos and destruction he'd wrought throughout the universe, he was banished to the ice planet, Mor'Tal, to freeze to death. With Shredder gone, Hun would turn the Purple Dragons into an organized crime syndicate and Karai would take over the Foot Clan as the new Shredder with Chaplin at her side. Alternate Future At one point, Donatello was trapped in alternate future where Ch'rell successfully took over the world. Splinter and Casey Jones were already dead, Michelangelo lost his left arm, Raphael lost his left eye, and Hun was in a wheelchair with Stockman's brain sewn into his shoulder and helping the Turtles. In a final showdown with Ch'rell, all the future Turtles, Hun, Stockman, and Karai were killed and Donatello faced off against Ch'rell himself in a powerful new exo-suit. He easily beat Donatello, but was killed after the Turtle shoved the turtle Tunneler into his face. However Donatello went back to the past, preventing that future from occurring. Shredder War In the future, the Utrom Shredder was seen locked in combat with the Tengu Shredder and Cyber Shredder. Around them, the Foot Ninja loyal to Utrom Shredder battled those loyal to the Cyber Shredder. Turtles Forever After the Shredder from the universe of the 1987 TMNT show ended up in that of the 2003 show, he began looking for his counterpart. He eventually located Ch'rell, frozen and teleported him to the Technodrome, where he revived the Utrom. However, it didn't work out as the 1987 Shredder had hoped, since the Ch'rell proceeded to take de facto control of the Technodrome with help from Karai. He used technology from Krang's body to construct a more powerful exo-suit for himself and upgraded the Technodrome with Utrom technology. Ch'rell also created more advanced versions of the Foot Soldiers, as well as an army of mutants from his human soldiers. He proceeded to view all other dimensions using the Technodrome's dimensional portal, but what he saw shook him. Utrom Shredder saw that there were Ninja Turtles in every dimension and resolved to destroy each version. He used the Technodrome to attack New York along with his army of advanced Foot Soldiers and mutants. When the 1987 turtles and 2003 Turtles confronted Ch'rell, he managed to capture them and revealed his full plan. He told them that each dimension branched off of one original dimension, "Turtle Prime", which was the dimension of the original TMNT comics. Ch'rell proceeded to show the turtles their alternate selves across the Multiverse and reveals he is scanning both groups of Turtles for the DNA he needed to find Turtle Prime and destroy it, thus destroying Ninja Turtles in every dimension. He then located Turtle Prime and gloated they will be destroyed with the scan. With this done, Utrom Shredder headed to Turtle Prime to destroy it, but the 1987 and 2003 Turtles managed to follow him. After meeting and joining forces with their comic book incarnations, they went to deal with Utrom Shredder in Technodrome as he continued destroying the dimension. The comic Turtles managed to taunt Utrom Shredder into coming out to face them, but he soon found himself confronted by three teams of Turtles, 1987 Shredder, Krang, 2003 Splinter, along with Karai, who'd realized that his actions would destroy them all. However, Ch'rell grew his exo-suit to giant size and proceeded to overwhelm them all with his suit's new technology. He eventually had the original Turtles in his grasp, almost crushing them to death, but failed to finish them. Ch'rell was forced into the laser of the Technodrome, apparently destroying him for good, all because Bebop and Rocksteady unplugged then replugged in the laser (which was apparently powered by a power outlet). However, Splinter remarked that he was seldom gone for long and Karai agreed that he would return again. In Comics Ch'rell made a cameo in the Mirage comics and later appears as a major villain in the IDW comics he was first shown as a prisoner in the Utrom jail until he was freed by Krang's followers who seek to make him Krang's replacement after his demise at the hands of Leatherface. Ch'rell was Krang's deadlist warrior and now the leader of his remaining forces. He is also the brother of Ma'rhell and dislikes that she made the Utroms peaceful and seeks to continue Krang's legacy as well as fighting the Turtles later on. He has yet to done the mantle of Shredder. He was the colonel of the Utroms before siding with Krang. Powers and Abilities On his own, Ch'rell isn't the most dangerous enemy, given his small size and body design. However, he has demonstrated great craftiness, speed, and strength, successfully knocking around his 1987 counterpart and Krang. When Ch'rell is in his exo-suit as the Shredder, he has demonstrated great skill at martial arts, out-fighting all of the Turtles and his primary weapon is the claws on his armored hand. Ch'rell is extremely technologically knowledgeable due to being an Utrom and has numerous forms of advanced technology at his disposal. The exosuit that he wore also gave him many advantages, such as wielding a weapon that can only be wielded with protective gloves (like the Sword of Tengu), and faking his death multiple times (up until the revelation of his Utrom nature, Ch'rell was believed to be a human by his adversaries). Aside from his usual exo-suit Shredder, Ch'rell has used a few other versions that are more powerful, such as the one he made based on Krang’s suit. This version can grow to giant size and has a number of weapons built into the hands. Quotes Trivia *The Utrom twist on this version of the Shredder was conceived by Peter Laird and Lloyd Goldfine with what Ch'rell looked like being thought of by Laird. *This is the first version of the Shredder that is not human. *He is, by far, the most evil version of the Shredder, as well as being one of the most evil cartoon characters ever. **He also has the highest body count out of all incarnations of the Shredder, as he is directly responsible for at least millions (if not billions) of lives being lost (though most of his victims died before he assumed Shredder's identity). **He is also one of the most evil cartoon characters of all time as he is completely insane alien who murders millions (if not billions) and wishes to create chaos and destroy the entire Multiverse. *It's unknown how and why he turned evil, as in the episode that revealed both his background and true nature as an Utrom, he was only shown already being very evil, dangerous and imprisoned before escaped. *In the video game Mutant Nightmare, the Utrom Shredder fires electric bolts but in the series he never does this. *In the Turtles Forever movie, the 1987 Shredder found him instead of Tengu Shredder while looking for his TMNT 2003 counterpart, even though the Tengu Shredder is technically the Oroku Saki of that world. This is most likely due to Ch'rell being the most "major" of the three Shredders, and also possibly because at the time Ch'rell, the current Shredder at that time, was still alive while Tengu Shredder was dead and Karai only temporarily took the Shredder mantle. *Even though the Tengu Shredder is described as the "Greatest evil the world has ever known", the Utrom Shredder is often considered more evil due to him committing extremely evil acts throughout the universe while the Tengu Shredder only terrorized the Earth. *He also made a cameo in the Mirage Comics. *Ch'rell appears in the IDW comics as a separate character from both Krang and Shredder as well as being the deadliest warrior under the former. **Of the two, however, Ch'rell is unquestionably much more evil character, as he is eager and willing to destroy the entire Multiverse, while Rat King's plans are only lethal to the human population of Earth. Thus, he is the most evil TMNT character ever. *WatchMojo listed Utrom Shredder, along with all versions of the Shredder, as #1 on their "Top 10 TMNT Villains" list. **Despite ranking all versions of the Shredder as #1, they mentioned the Utrom Shredder specifically. This is because people generally believe that the Utrom Shredder is the most memorable of them all. 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